Must Have Developer Tools for 2025 Free and Paid Essentials

Whether you are building web apps APIs or mobile software here is a curated list of essential developer tools for 2025 categorized by purpose Each tool is tagged as free or paid so you can choose the ones that match your workflow and budget

1 Code Editors and IDEs

VS CodeFree

The most popular lightweight editor with thousands of extensions Git integration AI support and fast startup

Download VS Code

WebStormPaid

A powerful IDE for JavaScript TypeScript and frontend frameworks by JetBrains

Visit WebStorm

2 Version Control and Collaboration

GitHubFree

Code hosting version control CI actions and issue tracking all in one

Visit GitHub

GitKrakenPaid

Graphical Git client with clean UI conflict resolution and team tools

Try GitKraken

3 API Development and Testing

PostmanFree

Most-used API testing platform with collaboration collections test suites and monitors

Use Postman

HoppscotchFree

Open-source alternative to Postman with sleek UI and offline support

Visit Hoppscotch

4 Deployment and DevOps

VercelFree

Zero-config deployment for frontend apps with CI built-in great for Next.js

Deploy on Vercel

DockerFree

Standard for containerization local dev environments and consistent builds

Get Docker

Comparison Table

ToolCategoryFreeBest For
VS CodeEditorYesFrontend Backend All
WebStormEditorNoAdvanced JS IDE
GitHubVersion ControlYesCollaboration CI
GitKrakenGit ClientNoVisual Git
PostmanAPI TestingYesManual API flows
HoppscotchAPI TestingYesLightweight alternative
VercelDeploymentYesFrontend apps
DockerContainersYesDevOps local dev